Orbital Sciences Corp. will launch TacSat-2 and -3 for the U.S. Air Force under a $23-million contract awarded by its Rocket System Launch Program. Drafted to demonstrate operationally responsive launchers, the contract requires Orbital to use a Minotaur I to launch TacSat-2 within six months of the award. TacSat-3 must follow that flight within a year. The second launch is scheduled for September 2007.
House and Senate negotiators, who left for the Memorial Day recess about $14 billion apart in their versions of war and hurricane supplemental funding bills, will get back to work next week. With funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at stake, as well as Gulf Coast hurricane relief, the Senate calls for $109 billion, while the House matches the Bush administration's $94.5-billion request. President Bush threatens to veto a bloated bill. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) says congressional leaders are "very close" to agreement.
An initial public offering for a minority stake in Aeroports de Paris will take place this summer, says French Finance Minister Thierry Breton. About 30% of the shares are expected to be floated. Additionally, ADP plans to increase to raise 500-600 million euros via a capital increase.
Jay Donoghue has been appointed director of publications for the Alexandria, Va.-based Flight Safety Foundation. He was editorial director of Air Transport World magazine.
Despite government and union pressure to reconsider, EADS management has confirmed a decision to close the main plant and headquarters of Sogerma at Merignac, near Bordeaux--part of a deep restructuring plan aimed at turning around the deficit-producing maintenance, repair and overhaul affiliate (AW&ST May 22, p. 26). EADS reaffirmed promises to reposition as many of the plant's 1,050 employees as possible, and said it would help support efforts to attract other aerospace operations to the site.
Missile defense programs may become a victim of their own success, says a senior House Armed Services Committee member. Program supporters have convinced lawmakers of the seriousness of the threat, says Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), but missile defense could become the "bill payer" as defense budgets tighten. "Your area of the budget will get the most scrutiny by members looking to pay for other programs," Weldon tells a National Defense University Foundation audience on Capitol Hill.
Roger Morenc has been appointed senior director of revenue and market management for Frontier Airlines. He was director of market management for ATA Airlines.
Saab Ericsson Space has been tapped to supply modular payload adaptors for Boeing's Land Launch booster, which will provide medium-lift geosynchronous-transfer-orbit launches from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, starting next year. The adaptors are earmarked for PanAmSat-11 and Horizons-2, both of which are scheduled for 2007 launches. Separately, Saab landed a 10-million-euro award to supply guidance computers and telemetry antennas for 25 new Ariane 5 boosters.
NATO is "beset by declining budgets," and members are not all meeting the 2002 goal of contributing 2% of their gross domestic products, says U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, head of U.S. European Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Member nations, however, are increasingly willing to take on anti-terrorist and anti-insurgency missions such as in Afghanistan, Jones tells the National Press Club in Washington. Member nations seem most willing to offer their navies for NATO missions, if only because ships are funded to be deployed anyway, he says.
Fifteen House Democrats want the Government Accountability Office to investigate security conditions at commercial airports around the U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, and 14 other lawmakers asked the GAO to follow up on a report it issued in April 2004, identifying weaknesses in perimeter security and access controls.
Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee explained that "self-imposed restraint" and not political pressure was the reason India decided not to conduct a test of its Agni III ballistic missile recently. "As responsible members of the international community, we want to keep our international commitments on nonproliferation," Mukherjee explained last week.
ALASKA AIRLINES PIONEERED THE USE OF Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedures in Alaska 10 years ago and is now using procedures in the lower 48 states at Portland International, San Francisco International, Palm Springs International and Reagan Washington National airports. The most recent addition to RNP operations is at Portland where the carrier began flying RNP approaches to both runways on May 8. The procedures shorten flight times, reduce fuel burn and provide additional flight safeguards, according to Ben Forrest, vice president of flight operations.
A legislative battle is brewing here over whether a law requiring U.S.-made specialty metals in military hardware should be eased or made more restrictive. Aerospace industry lobbyists and their allies are blitzing the Senate side of the Capitol to gain support for exempting low-cost, generic components such as nuts, bolts, washers and screws, from the law. Companies far down the supply chain say they have no way of verifying the origin of such items, which can cost less than 1 cent and are often purchased in bulk from the commercial market.
An equipment alert caused Ariane- space to delay the launch of Thaicom 5 and Satemex 6 by 24 hr. to May 27. Arianespace said it now has seven launch orders for 2006, including W2M contracted with Eutelsat on May 18.
In today's scandal-weary environment, it takes only a whiff of trouble to send investors heading for the exits. That's true even for a company hitting on all cylinders, as aircraft interiors supplier B/E Aerospace Inc. is finding out. With more than half of the sales of seating in new airplanes and a robust aftermarket business, B/E is about as locked on to the commercial aircraft industry recovery as a company can be. Its stock was a huge winner in 2005, with an industry-leading 89% appreciation.
International Space Station crewmen Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams are scheduled to exit the Russian side of the station June 1 in a 5-hr. 50-min. extravehicular activity to install a new valve on the Zvezda service module for the Elektron oxygen-generator, set up a television camera on the ISS mobile transporter, and retrieve external experiments. Mission Control Center-Moscow will oversee the EVA.
Turkish and Greek F-16s collided last week over the Aegean Sea, with the two Turkish pilots ejecting and the Greek pilot missing and presumed dead. Two Greek F-16s encountered two Turkish F-16s and an RF-4, and engaged in air combat maneuvers, leading to the incident. Efforts were underway to avoid escalation of tensions between the two countries. Meanwhile, on May 22, two Italian air force F-16s from the Trapani-based 37th Wing collided over Sardinia after a night training mission. Both pilots ejected.
Nice May 1 cover on A. Scott Crossfield! In general, the media made little of his passing. This seems strange since he contributed so much to aviation and our country on the whole. You did it right.
Spain, Hungary and Denmark will not be part of the common defense equipment market that the European Union is establishing as of July 1. The endeavor embraces a voluntary code of conduct and open trade on defense products within the EU--European efforts to impose open trade initially excluded national security purchases. Spain and Hungary indicate they may yet join, while Denmark has opted out of the EU's larger defense and security policy agenda so its non-involvement in the equipment measure was no surprise.
James W. Kennedy (see photo), director of the NASA Kennedy Space Center, has received the Kurt H. Debus Award from the National Space Club, Florida Committee, for his leadership of the shuttle launch site in the return-to-flight effort. Kennedy, who was deputy director when the 2003 Columbia accident occurred, was cited for revamping the center's quality control and oversight operations in the wake of the accident.
Business may be booming, but it's not easy being a U.S.-based supplier in the aerospace industry these days. Prime contractors are a lot more demanding. A ramp up in commercial aircraft production is straining capacity. The cost of raw materials is rising. Low-cost competitors are popping up overseas.
Air Berlin is continuing its quest to become a true low-cost airline following this month's launch of an initial public offering. Air Berlin's stock was traded for the first time on May 11 with an initial share price of 12 euros ($15.34) and gained about 5% that morning. The stock has since dropped to 9.9 euros. The company is now Germany's second airline to be floated on the Frankfurt stock exchange, following Lufthansa.
Years ago, Jack Northrop pointed out the key limitation of the flying wing concept for his time: As the dynamic pressure increases in a design intended for near transonic speeds, the structural requirements and associated weight for wing stiffness in both bending and torsion increase to prohibitive levels. The outer panels where the control surfaces are located wash out with the result that they lose effectiveness. The root cause? Viewed from a quasi-rigid standpoint, adverse washout is due to the inherent wing bending static stability.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration, airports and carriers are predicting 200 million air travelers nationwide during the peak U.S. summer travel period between the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.
The cargo handling facility at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport caught fire on May 24, and two Bombardier CL-215 water-bombing aircraft, which normally are used to fight forest fires, swooped in to help combat the flames.
